Chicago neoliberalism recoded freedom so no economic transaction could count as coercive

Evidence

However, Chicago neoliberalism transcends the classical liberal tension between the self-interested agent and the patriotic duty of the citizen by reducing both state and market to the identical flat ontology of the neoclassical model of the economy. (The situation prevalent at MPS was much more complex.) “Freedom” was recoded to mean only the capacity for self-realization attained through individual striving for a set of necessarily unexplained (and usually interpersonally ineffable) prior wants and desires. Once this new lexicon was firmly set in place, it became impossible within this discourse to regard any economic transaction whatsoever as coercive (Smith 1998, 80), which was a massive departure from prior classical liberal discourse. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 777

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the distinctive Chicago-neoliberal recoding of freedom as capacity for self-realization of unexplained wants.
• XREF: The narrowing of freedom to preference satisfaction connects to readings on market ontology and critique of neoclassical assumptions elsewhere in the reader’s corpus. — connects to: Chicago Boys openly deemed authoritarian coercion necessary for austerity — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 357; Neoliberalism redefines coercion so that no market exchange can ever count as coercive — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 167; Friedman valued market freedom over political democracy and saw the market as eliminating coercion. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 326 (+7 more)
• SHARE: A precise formulation of how Chicago school collapsed the state-market distinction worth sharing with anyone interested in intellectual history of economics.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal freedom is recoded as negative liberty to protect market supremacy #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2130
• Neoliberal ‘freedom’ is internally redefined to mean market autonomy, not political liberty #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 166
• Neoliberalism redefined liberty as economic rather than political. #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 380
• Neoliberals restrict freedom to negative freedom to shield market epistemology from scrutiny #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 169
• Modern freedom rests on an unacknowledged capitalist metaphysic #expands (0.75)
• Leading neoliberals defended restricting political freedom to preserve economic freedom #expands (0.75) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 500